


Transfer

by KinoGlowWorm



Series: Transference [1]
Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Folktales, Gen, Old Friends, capheus likes telling stories, post-Season 1, prison break - Freeform, slight mention of past suicide attempt, sun is better at helping than being helped, waiting is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 23:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4643958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinoGlowWorm/pseuds/KinoGlowWorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had rather expected that breaking out of prison would entail more kicking and less Hello Kitty, but conceded that quiet methods took longer to catch up to you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transfer

In the end, Sun just walked out the front gate of the prison. 

Actually, the guards escorted her out. A van was waiting there, right at the gates. Her long practice in keeping a perfectly still face under heavy stress was being pushed to its limits as the driver stepped out of the boxy white van to compare clipboards with the guards and her heart threatened to lodge itself in her throat. She singled out an oak tree across the street and tried to focus all of her attention on it to distract herself from the transaction happening directly in front of her. A soft breeze ruffled the leaves on the oak with a whisper as she noted the raw edges where a few branches had recently been cut back away from the power lines. 

“0773. 0773!” Sun shook her attention back in front of her as the guard barked her number out a second time. Her eyes turned and met the guard’s silently. 

“Officer Kang will take you to Cheonan, where you will continue to await trial. I don’t know why they think they need to keep you with the foreigners, farther away from the city, but if they want to make a stupid decision they can. They often do.” Sun nodded acknowledgment, pressing her lips together as her heart continued to pound. She looked up and reached to brush the hair the wind had blown into her face as she nervously made eye contact with the uniformed van driver for the first time, though she couldn’t be sure through his sunglasses that she had connected.

“Okay, let’s go,” he nodded towards the van, opening the side door so she could climb in and shutting it firmly behind her. She looked across the street at the oak tree again as the driver climbed in behind the wheel and pulled away from the prison gates.

They said nothing as the first minute of the ride stretched out and the prison became a speck on the horizon. Sun closed her eyes, took a deep breath in through her nose and began to let it out slowly through her mouth.

“I’m Jae-min, by the way. Nomi sent me to take you to the airport,” the driver said nonchalantly, pulling off his sunglasses and tossing them onto the console. Sun let the rest of the breath out all at once in relief as her eyes flashed open and her heart started to release its grip, “I had been following your case on the news and was shocked when Nomi told me what had really been going on. I can’t believe what an asshole your brother is. I mean, I can, I have some friends who work as hostesses in some of the clubs where he’s a regular and he has something of a reputation there, but shit, man. I hope you taking off doesn’t overshadow the rest of the investigation at the company. I guess she’s got wheels in motion on helping the law find paths to him, too, though.” He tossed a small, black duffle bag back to her from the front passenger seat. “Nomi sent me a big envelope for you and said you would need a few changes of clothes and some basic toiletries. I wasn’t sure what you’d need so I asked some friends in the costume department at the theater and they let me root around in some bins of old stuff and pull out a couple basics.” 

Sun was a little shocked at how casual Jae-min could be, given the fact that he was a key figure in a prison break that was still, technically, in progress. 

“Thank you for picking me up,” Sun replied haltingly as the van sped back to the city, “I am grateful for your putting yourself at risk for someone you don’t even know.”

“I’m not exaggerating to say that I wouldn’t have made it through high school alive if it weren’t for Nomi. Her word means a lot to me. Especially after the story she told me about your brother, I couldn’t refuse,” he explained. Nomi had sketched a broad picture of her time with Jae-min at St. Stephen’s Academy, the strictly conservative boarding school her parents had sent her to try to “fix” her in high school. He had been one of the first people she came out to there, after he had told her he was gay by way of explaining why he was emptying a stomach full of pills into the dorm toilet at 2:15 am. They had been nearly inseparable after that.

“You should get changed,” Jae-min gestured back at the bag in Sun’s lap, “By the time we switch cars there shouldn’t be any trace of prison left.” She unzipped it and started sifting through the clothing in the bag, moving around into the next seat to dress. None of the clothes were much like the professional attire she would typically wear, but the point was to look less like herself to reduce the risk of being recognized at the airport. Whatever fake papers Nomi had gotten cooked up for her might not be enough if she attracted attention from the wrong people with enough power to hold her. Fighting her way out would be dangerous in such a public place.

She had just turned her attention to the thick manila envelope in the bag when Jae-min turned off the road towards a service station and parked the van around the back of the garage. He opened the door, then turned around to face her.

“Wait here a minute, I’m going to grab us some food. No need to risk putting your face in public any more than it needs to be,” Jae-min advised as he stepped out of the car. He pulled the magnets identifying the van as part of the correctional system off the doors and walked around towards the store, stopping to toss the magnets and the cap from his uniform into the trunk of small blue Hyundai sedan parked closer to the building. With the trunk open, he paused to replace the crisp, blue correctional officer’s shirt with a bright purple polo, then stepped around the side and leaned down, attempting to fix his hair with his fingers in the car’s side-view mirror.

Sun finally opened the envelope, looking in to find a wallet, a small box and a dark blue passport stamped with a gold eagle seal and English writing. Flipping the first few pages, she saw her own picture, lifted from her company ID. “Surname: Park; Given names: Susan Doyun; Place of Birth: California, U.S.A.” She read aloud to herself. And, to her surprise, to Nomi, who had just materialized next to her on the van’s wide, gray bench seat.

“Pretty good, huh?” Nomi grinned at her. Sun’s lip curled up softly on one side of her mouth, her face warm and gentle with relief for the first time in almost as long as she could remember, though a twist of concern still lingered deep in her belly. “I would have checked in earlier, but I didn’t want to distract you and then I thought it might be awkward talking to you around Jae-min, especially since I didn’t explain to him about all...this.” She waved her hands, sweeping broad circles between her and Sun. “It’s complicated to explain and it might be more of a liability for him to know. For his safety as much as ours.” 

Sun nodded, still a little amazed at the risks Jae-min was taking for someone he’d never met. But then again, he wasn’t here just on her behalf, was he?

Lito appeared on the seat behind her, following up what she had thought rather than what had been spoken, “Besides, he’s an actor; this is a role.” Lito punctuated his speech with his hands in the air. “From what Nomi has told me about him it sounds like he is used to playing roles as often off stage as on it, like I have done. I would have been honored to have played your prison guard if it would not have looked suspicious.”

“It’s not over yet,” Sun reminded them both as she played through in her mind everything else that would have to happen perfectly for her to be safe, or as safe as she was going to be on the other side of this. The knot in her stomach grew tighter and heavier. 

“I have to go. Hernando is calling me for dinner. Good luck with your travels. I am certain that the hardest part is over.” He squeezed her shoulders and then was gone. Sun was not so certain she agreed with Lito’s optimism about the situation.

“Nice outfit, by the way,” Nomi complimented, looking up and down the oversized, cutoff black band T-shirt over a colorful tank top and ragged jeans Sun had chosen to replace her prison gear. “You should think about working this into your regular look.” She giggled drily, “Wouldn’t have had you pegged for a Ramones fan.”

“Just one last detail,” she said, digging through the bag of clothes purposefully, pulling out a slouchy black beanie and sliding it onto Sun’s head, delicately arranging her chin-length black hair around it. “There’s sunglasses in there, too,” she advised, “I told him to make sure you had them.”

“Okay, let’s look over what else is in here,” Nomi pulled the wallet, which turned out to be emblazoned with Hello Kitty, out of the envelope. Sun raised an eyebrow and shot Nomi a questioning look. “What? It’s cute. Amanita picked this out special for you. She thought you needed something cheery.” 

Sun rolled her eyes but let her lips fall into a soft smile at the thought as she accepted the wallet and unsnapped its closure. She had rather expected that breaking out of prison would entail more kicking and less Hello Kitty, but conceded that quiet methods took longer to catch up to you. The silly picture on the wallet served as a reminder of that and, in a way, did make it slightly comforting as she opened it up.

“Two credit cards, California driver’s license - do you actually drive, by the way?” Nomi asked casually as she flipped through the wallet’s contents.

“No. I learned years ago, but I never have occasion to drive.” Sun replied without looking up, pulling a small stack of cards out of a side pocket and looking at them puzzledly.

“Yeah, me neither. I never even learned. I mean, when do I need to drive?” Nomi exclaimed, taking the cards from Sun’s hand and fanning them out. “They’re customer loyalty cards from a couple places in LA from when I was there a couple weeks for work a while back. They’d been sitting in my wallet for months and I was wondering why I even bothered keeping them but then I realized they’d totally help your cover as an American traveler from Los Angeles.” 

Nomi pulled out one red card with a border of chili peppers. Three had punch marks in them. She pointed emphatically at it. “This burrito place was amazing. You should go there if you’re ever in the area. They had this Thai chicken burrito with this red cabbage slaw and…” She interrupted herself, suddenly realizing how inessential this was at the moment. 

“Anyway,” she continued, “there’s some other stuff in here for flavor. You have $750 in US cash. Don’t worry too much about the amount of money available through the credit cards, but be sparing about how often you use them and careful not to use them too close to where you’re staying. We’re still basically funding this out of money appropriated from the late Dr. Metzger and even though it’s been rerouted through a couple different places to these accounts, we have to assume that BPO might be able to get access to whatever kinds of records we can. The less we can point them towards Susan Park, the better.” Nomi opened the small box and began unwinding the fasteners around the small gadget inside. “Bluetooth headset, in case you want to talk at the airport. You can pick up a phone after you land if you need it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Sun saw Jae-min coming around the corner balancing a bowl of instant noodles, lid tented open, and a bag of other items. Sun’s mouth began to water as she saw the thin thread of steam rising out of the noodle bowl.

“Jae-min is ready. I should go,” Sun said matter of factly as she turned to face to Nomi, who looked over her shoulder towards the car with a wistful smile.

“I really wish I could be here with both of you. He’s like family, and I haven’t gotten to really spend time with him in years, since he went back to Korea after college. I mean, Skype’s good, but it’s not quite the same.” She paused and Sun saw a damp redness beginning to line her eyes and felt the lump in Nomi’s heart weighting her own. “He looks really good. He looks like things are really starting to go well for him. I wish I could ask you to tell him I said hi right now.” Nomi chuckled sadly, blinking back the tears beginning to sneak out of her eyes.

Sun replaced the envelope and its contents in the duffle, zipped it back up and slung it over her shoulder as she stepped out of the van towards Jae-min at the car. He grinned broadly at her. Nomi followed several steps behind, her arms folded protectively around her, a soft look on her face.

“I can only imagine what bland shit they must feed you in there, and I figured you could use some good honest food before you take off away from it again,” Jae-min handed the bag and the noodle bowl over to her. Sun almost groaned with pleasure as the savory steam hit her nose and the greasy red slick on the surface of the broth caught her eye.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to eat on the go, though,” he continued, “It’s already after 11:00 and your flight leaves just around two. And I have no idea what traffic between here and Incheon will look like. Careful, though, this is a rental.”

Sun slid into the passenger seat of the car, dropping the duffle at her feet and cradling the noodle bowl like the precious cargo it was. “Or how long it will take them to realize I’m not at Cheonan,” she thought without saying aloud.

She slurped at her noodles as she watched the familiar skyline of Seoul skim by in the distance, rising and falling away again as the highway took them out towards the island where the airport waited. Jae-min prattled on cheerily about the play he was working on at the moment, which was a children’s story based on a folktale about two brothers who quarrel and sparrows who grow magic pumpkins. Sun vaguely remembered her mother telling her a story like this as a child. She had always enjoyed listening to her mother tell stories.

It was something of a relief to her that Jae-min seemed happy to fill the space between them. Sun was not, by nature, a chatty person even on her most outgoing days. This, certainly not one of them, had drawn her even further within herself as she endlessly turned over the plan in her head.

The closer the airport approached, the faster Jae-min seemed to talk. Sun wasn’t sure if this was simply a mirroring of her own anxiety about this next step of the process or if it was at least partly for her benefit, his way of trying to keep her mind away from the nature of the situation and in good spirits. 

As they started crossing the long bridge towards the airport, the knot in her stomach started to tighten again and she could feel her heartbeat sticking in the back of her throat. She tried to listen to whatever story he was telling about an awkward mishap with a sparrow costume, but all that came through her ears was a dull, buzzing hum. What if the passport didn’t work? What if the flight got delayed or even canceled? What if someone recognized her? She tried to pick out something in the distance to fix her eyes on and center her attention like she had done with the tree outside the prison earlier that morning, but the only things she could focus on were parts of the airport: the dome that bubbled up in the central terminal, the air traffic control towers, and she found herself unable to focus on anything else.

Suddenly, she felt firm, warm pressure on her shoulders, squeezing gently down her arms. She knew Capheus’s hands well enough by now to know it was him even before she turned around to see him sitting in the back seat, smiling radiantly at her as he massaged her neck. He, in turn, knew her well enough by now to know that there were no helpful words that she could hear in this particular moment, and so he offered her as much comfort as he knew she would be able to accept. 

For the first time since she had woken up that morning, and, if she was being honest, rather longer than that, Sun let her eyes slide shut and sank into her seat as the rest of her relaxed into his touch. The airport ahead of her disappeared, and, for just that moment, all of its possible snags with it. She took a deep breath in through her nose, and began releasing it slowly through her mouth.

Jae-min grew silent as they slowed to a stop outside the terminal. Capheus gave her shoulders one last tight squeeze and was gone. Sun opened her eyes and they immediately darted through the crush of travelers and their families to single out anyone wearing a uniform. Sun slid the sunglasses protectively onto her face and looked over at Jae-min. He reached over and tucked one strand of hair under her hat, much the way Nomi had not long ago.

“Thank you for all that you have done for me,” Sun told him, looking him directly in the eye through the dark glasses. Thinking of Lito’s comments about the situation earlier, she added, “I appreciate how you are able to bring your art into life.” Jae-min smiled and, for a moment, was quiet. 

“When you speak with Nomi later, please thank her for everything she’s done for me today,” Sun said seriously, thinking of Nomi’s face as she had watched Jae-min fiddle with the food and the car, totally unaware that she had been watching him. Until meeting her cluster, she hadn’t really felt that kind of fierce kinship, not since her mother had passed at least, and had been isolated by her position to the point where human connection felt more like a liability, like a weight, like a danger, than like a joy. She had her dog for that. 

“Oh, I will,” Jae-min affirmed, and she could hear the weight of his sincerity through the warmth of his voice. Sun envied the strength of the bonds Nomi had, even outside of their cluster. But she was learning to trust these connections again.

“Give Nomi a hug from me when you see her later,” he continued and Sun paused, finding the questions strange. Then, she remembered that Nomi had only told him the bare minimum of what the plan was once he dropped Sun off at the airport, for his own safety, so he only knew what time she needed to be at the airport, not what flight she was on. Of course, he assumed she was going to where Nomi was; she was the only other point in this plan’s compass for him.

“Of course,” Sun replied as warmly as she could muster. She meant it, too. She may not be flying to San Francisco, but she would surely get a chance to hug their friend before he would and would happily oblige, although it wasn’t her typical style.

Sun returned her attention to the people hurrying around her, then opened the car door and stepped out. She dropped the empty noodle bowl in a nearby trash can and reached back into the car for the duffle bag.

Jae-min stepped out of his own side of the car, his own eyes scanning the surroundings as he stepped over close to her. “I’ll wait outside here for another fifteen minutes in case anything goes wrong getting your boarding pass.” He explained in a low, even voice, putting a hand on her shoulder. Then he took a step back and offered her his hand to shake, looking at her and heaving a sigh. “Good luck,” he said, tightening his lips into a thin, but sincere smile as she took his hand and shook it. She took a deep breath, slung her bag over her shoulder and turned for the door.

After all the concerns that had been molten lead in her stomach on the way in, everything in the airport went off without a single snag. The anticlimax of it left Sun a little numb. This kind of passivity didn’t suit her. There was a release in fighting her way out that no part of this offered her. She fidgeted slightly in her seat at the gate, her eyes flitting around the sterile glass and gray plastic of the space from behind her sunglasses, looking for any glimmer of recognition on the faces of the passersby as she slouched low in the seat the way she imagined someone who would pick these clothes might, legs slightly splayed. 

Capheus appeared in the empty seat to her left, placing his fingers over hers on the hard plastic armrest. She hadn’t realized how tightly she had been gripping it until she had the soft reminder of his warm skin there. She released her fingers from around the end of the bar and let them float up to interlock with his, their intertwined hands resting lightly on the armrest. She pushed herself up slightly as she glanced over at the clock behind the gate’s desk and quickly did the calculation of what time it was in Nairobi that she’d become so practiced at recently. It was about seven on Tuesday morning for him. He was probably just about to sit down to breakfast with his mother. 

“Have I told you the story about the caterpillar in the hare’s house yet?” He asked brightly, raising an eyebrow and smirking playfully at her. She considered the question for a moment. While she had been in prison, her cluster had never left her alone for too long, particularly for the time she was in solitary confinement, and she had taken to riding along whenever Capheus drove Amondi to the clinic for her treatments. Packed full for the city commute, the Van Damn was a little too overwhelming for her, but with the cheerful, polite girl as the only other passenger, Sun could ride in the passenger seat and enjoy the scenery and the company. 

The routine had already been established by the time Sun came on the scene, but on every ride out to the clinic, Amondi would beg Capheus to tell her a story. Begging wasn’t really necessary, though, just part of the theatrics of it all. It was entirely clear from the wild gestures and voices that accompanied each story that Capheus enjoyed telling the stories as much as she enjoyed hearing them. Sun had asked him about it once as they sat in the van, waiting for the child to return after her treatment, and he described with reverie the stories his father used to tell him as a child, every night as he was getting ready to go to sleep and on the long walks to the school where his father taught. Sun had heard many of these stories by this point, but couldn’t recall one about a caterpillar.

“I don’t believe you have,” she replied after her brief deliberation.

“Ah,” began Capheus, sitting up straight on the edge of the seat and putting on the highly-animated voice he used for telling stories, “One day, the Caterpillar was looking for a new place to live and he came upon a house that was completely empty. It was not too big, not too small and had a lovely soft bed inside. The Caterpillar said to himself, 'This is a fine house,' and started settling in and making himself at home.”

His hands leapt off of the armrests as he started punctuating each action in the story with movements of his hands.

“Not long after, the Hare returned home, because, you see, this was the Hare’s house that the Caterpillar had moved into. The Hare noticed the strange set of tracks leading into the house and called out in a loud voice, ‘Who is in my house?!’

“Now, the Caterpillar heard this and was startled but he also had a plan. The Caterpillar, he crawled under the bed and he put on his best big booming voice and shouted, ‘I am in this house. I am the one who crushes rhinos and tramples elephants.’ Hearing this, the Hare leapt out of the house frightenedly, and hopped off down the road, crying, ‘Oh, what can a small animal like me do in the face of one who crushes rhinos and tramples elephants?’

“Soon, the Hare met his friend the Jackal, and he said, ‘Oh, Jackal, there is a great, monstrous beast that has taken over my house and I don’t know what to do to get it out!’

“The Jackal said, ‘I know just what to do,’ and he strode proudly up to the doorway of the house and growled with all his sharp teeth showing, ‘Who is this foul beast invading my friend’s house?’

“And the Caterpillar, from his hiding place under the bed, responded in the same way: ‘I am the one who crushes rhinos and tramples elephants.’ When he heard this, the Jackal yelped and turned his tail, crying, ‘If this beast crushes rhinos and tramples elephants, what might he do to a poor creature like me.’ And with that, he ran off in a cloud of dust.”

Just then, the loudspeaker interrupted, squawking politely, “At this time we are now preparing to board Thai Airways flight 629 to Bangkok.”

They both rose to their feet. Sun gathered her bag and they walked together over to the organic blob of a line forming back from the gate.

“Anyway,” Capheus continued, pausing for a minute to think about how to wrap up the story more quickly but continuing undeterred, “The Hare meets a Rhinoceros and an Elephant and they both come to his house and the same thing happens: each demands that the beast identify himself, but takes off running when this teeny caterpillar that is hiding under the bed yells that he is the one who crushes rhinos and tramples elephants. The Hare has almost given up hope, but then he meets a Frog and explains the situation to him. 

“Now, the Frog is not much bigger than the Caterpillar himself, but he hops right into the Hare’s house and shouts, ‘Now you hear this! I am the one who crushes those who crush the rhinoceros. I am the one who tramples on those that trample elephants.’

“Hearing this, and seeing the frog’s long shadow falling giant on the floor with the evening sun behind him, the Caterpillar begins to tremble on all of his many little legs and starts trying to sneak out from under the bed and out the door as quickly and quietly as possible. But as he is almost out the door, the Hare catches sight of him and picks him up by his back feet, holding him up in the air in front of his face. ‘You!?’ the Hare exclaims, his face hot with anger, ‘You were the mighty, vicious beast that pushed me out of my home?!’

“And the Caterpillar, he turns his nose up, hanging there in the air and he says, ‘I would never dream of staying in that dump. You wouldn’t believe the echo in there!’” Capheus cackled and then paused as he searched Sun’s attentive face for a reaction.

“And that’s the end?” Sun asked, a little puzzled.

“Well, there is a bit more, but it’s mostly the other animals laughing at the Caterpillar for being so full of himself,” Capheus replied, grinning and shrugging. Despite herself, Sun felt a huge laugh bubbling up in her belly and did her best to contain it and not draw too much attention to herself. She had only moderate success in this. She had never before in her life known someone who could make her laugh like this, but it seemed to have become a common occurrence around Capheus. She was beyond grateful for the earpiece Nomi and Jae-min had included in her kit of essential equipment which made her merely an annoyance rather than a spectacle.

The line was pulled slowly, steadily, into the gate and only a few people remained between Sun and the attendants checking boarding passes. In just moments, she would be on the plane and the most complex, volatile parts of the plan - even if they hadn’t seemed so in the execution - would be over. She realized that the laugh still trying to force her into convulsions was as much relief for having made it this far as it was just about a stuck-up caterpillar.

Sun had more or less recovered from her laugh attack when Capheus put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close to his side. She felt her stomach flutter lightly in yet another way. She turned into the crisp pleats of his white shirt front and rested her cheek on his shoulder. He wrapped his other arm around her as well, almost crushing her into his chest as he took a deep breath and sighed. 

“I can’t wait until you arrive,” he spoke quietly, reverently into her ear. Their next few breaths rose and fell with identical rhythm. Sun raised her head slightly and peeked awkwardly over his shoulder to see the woman ahead of her in line tucking her boarding pass back into her passport. Sun’s sunglasses clattered over Capheus’s shoulder onto the floor and she scrambled to pick them up from between his feet as he took a step away, laughing at the situation. Sun wrangled the glasses onto the collar of her shirt and stood up, adjusting the bag hanging on her shoulder before turning to the attendant and trying to still her face into a serious mask.

“So sorry,” she apologized as she handed over her boarding pass. The attendant ripped the perforated end off of the pass and handed the rest back to her, giving her an odd, disapproving look through heavily made-up eyes.

Sun stopped just before the doors to tuck the pass back into her new passport and then stow the passport into the side pocket of the bag. Capheus walked down the jetway beside her. When she stopped behind the line of people waiting to board she turned to him, and said, “I look forward to seeing you soon.” Sun wasn’t much one for flowery language, but she meant what she said.

She stepped onto the plane, and he was gone.


End file.
